Wednesday, June 07, 2006

A favorite pastime of mine is to walk or bicycle about my city exploring the side streets, visiting small shops and restaurants. The pugs are willing accomplices on these ventures, at least the walking kind. If they sense that perhaps I’m going for a walk they stir, growing hyper attentive, curlicues wagging while they emit little squeals. If I approach the place where the harnesses and leashes are hung the cacophony rises and when I touch a leash the two burst into an orgasmic frenzy.

So off we go Abelard and Heloise straining ahead, the leashes pulled taut. Of course we stop, seemingly every few feet, so they can mark their passing and to pass the remains of a previous dinner. And of course they need to bark at every other dog they see and receive attention from passers by who succumb to their cuteness. The problem with the pugs is that after a couple of kilometers they are ready to pack it in, a bit of water maybe a treat and a good nap. Of course I’m only getting started.

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Sunday, Café Kim didn’t open we decided a picnic was more appropriate. On an adjacent field a group of men were playing baseball. It seemed to be a mix of North Americans, Koreans and Japanese; it was a friendly game played in earnest. As we watched I regaled my friends with Kim’s experience playing softball.

On summer a group of us, mostly fellow students, decided to create a team to participate in a park league. At our first practice, Amy and Katie who were functioning as player coaches decided that the best place to hide Kim, when she played, was right field. I’m not sure why that was but it might have something to do with my nearly being hit in the head with two pop fly’s and the balls ability to evade my glove.

The evening of our first game I was suspicious that something was up and it wasn’t just my usual paranoid self. As I sat on the bench the team gathered around me and Katie asked for my glove and after said she took said, “we’re only doing this for your own protection” at which point another player handed me a set of pompoms.